0:17

[inaudible] I'm Katia and we're here in the Commonwealth

0:20

center for holistic herbalism in Boston,

0:22

Massachusetts. Thanks

0:24

to the power of a Bobcat.

0:28

Yeah. All right. Well, today we're

0:30

going to talk about mushrooms.

0:32

Yes. Like, and now for something completely

0:34

different.

0:34

Yeah. Yeah. And now for some medicinal

0:37

mushrooms, this is a topic

0:39

that we've had requested a couple of times. And

0:41

, uh, today's the day,

0:43

This is also a topic near

0:45

and dear to my own heart. Especially

0:47

if you ascribe to

0:50

the old wives tale

0:52

of the best way to a person's heart

0:54

is through their stomach because

0:56

I love to eat.

0:58

You do love, do you think there's

1:00

a little journey there, but yeah, no.

1:03

Yeah. We're all here now in

1:05

the mushroom kingdom. Uh , but before we start,

1:08

we want to remind you that we are not doctors.

1:10

We are herbalists and holistic health educators.

1:13

The ideas we discuss in this podcast

1:15

do not constitute medical advice,

1:17

no state or federal authority licenses

1:20

herbalists in the United States. So

1:22

these discussions are for educational purposes, only

1:25

everybody's body is different. So the

1:27

things that we're talking about may or may not apply

1:29

directly to you, but we hope that

1:31

they'll give you some good information to think about and

1:33

some ideas to research further.

1:35

And we want to remind you that good health is

1:37

your right and your own personal responsibility.

1:40

And that means that the final decision, when considering

1:42

any course of therapy, whether discussed on the internet

1:44

or prescribed by a physician is

1:46

always yours, yours.

1:49

Yes. So , uh,

1:52

let's talk about medicinal mushrooms. So, you know, as

1:54

herbalists, we , we talk about herbs

1:57

and sometimes we'll say, well, you know, herbs

1:59

or plants that make you healthy. But

2:01

, uh, in fact, it's not true because herbs

2:04

is much bigger than that. Um,

2:06

even in, even in the Western tradition, I say,

2:08

because, you know, certainly in , in Chinese

2:11

medicine, herbs sometimes

2:13

includes, you know, powdered insects

2:15

and , uh, various other kinds of

2:18

, of animal items. Um,

2:20

We don't really have that tradition in

2:23

the, in Western herbalism.

2:25

Um , but mushrooms are not,

2:28

plants

2:29

Are not plants, they're in a whole other kingdom. You know,

2:31

there , there are different kinds of life and

2:34

, uh , mushrooms in some ways have

2:37

similarities to plants. They have similarities

2:39

to animals. Um, and that's

2:41

true in kind of the way that they grow

2:43

and the way they present themselves, but even on

2:46

, uh, on the level of chemistry,

2:48

you know, some of the things that that mushrooms

2:50

produce, for instance, you, you don't see

2:52

any plants make them, but you do see animals

2:55

do that. I'm thinking here of vitamin

2:57

D vitamin. Yeah. Mushrooms

2:59

can make that. That's pretty cool.

3:01

That's pretty cool. That's cool. Okay.

3:03

Wait, I have to actually revise

3:06

my statement that Western

3:09

tradition doesn't have any animal

3:11

medicines because actually

3:14

chicken soup. So

3:18

we'll go with that. Or like bone broth in general,

3:20

maybe you prefer, you know, beef

3:22

bone shank or fish head soup

3:25

or whatever, but , but I

3:27

guess we would include broth as

3:30

, um, as

3:32

part of our medicinal tradition, the

3:35

hint . Okay. So, all right. I

3:37

see . I correct. My previous statement. However,

3:39

it is not as common as it is and in

3:42

many other traditions. Yeah ,

3:43

Yeah. Especially in modern herbalism, you

3:45

know , uh, so medicinal

3:47

mushrooms are fascinating. They're , they're exciting.

3:50

Um, a couple of their particular medicinal

3:52

activities have garnered a lot of interests

3:55

, uh, over time. And

3:57

, uh, the big one is usually around the way

3:59

that medicinal mushrooms can interface with our

4:02

immune system. Uh,

4:04

most of the medicinal mushrooms that we look into

4:06

have what you call an immunomodulatory

4:09

effect, and it's

4:11

worth taking a moment to just talk about immunomodulation

4:14

and what that means, what that could look

4:16

like and how that might happen. So

4:18

just as a little,

4:19

And also maybe just as a sort

4:21

of definition, the word

4:23

modulate , um,

4:27

I , I like that word so

4:29

much better than stimulate because

4:31

stimulate implies only

4:33

one direction, like up

4:35

, up, up , um, and

4:38

that's not actually accurate

4:40

there, there are some plants that are stimulants. I'm thinking

4:42

about coffee, for example, Rhodiola.

4:45

Yeah. But for that matter.

4:47

Right, right . But a lot of the plants

4:49

that we have sort of historically referred

4:52

to as stimulants immune

4:54

stimulants in particular are actually

4:57

not, they are immune

5:00

modulators, or even if they do

5:02

have stimulant actions, they also

5:04

have modulating actions.

5:07

And so modular modulation

5:10

is more of a bring,

5:12

bring to a right place. Something

5:15

that is too high might come down, something

5:17

that is under functioning might come

5:19

up. Um, so

5:22

I, I like that kind of phrasing

5:24

a little better because it , it, it reflects

5:26

the complexity of the action

5:29

more accurately.

5:30

Yeah. And I think w I think what gets people to

5:33

, to want to call these agents immunostimulants

5:36

or immune stimulating herbs or whatever , uh,

5:39

in so many contexts, is that the,

5:42

the places where they're encountering those

5:44

herbs are the reasons that they have for taking

5:46

them. Are I got sick

5:48

or I , I want to not get sick.

5:51

Uh , I want to protect myself. And that's, that's where most

5:53

of , uh, people's encounter

5:56

with medicinal mushrooms is taking place. Um,

5:59

when,

6:00

And so, and so, like, logically, they're thinking

6:02

I want to stimulate my immune system so that I don't

6:05

get sick or so that I can fight off the sickness.

6:08

Right . Um, but, but

6:10

even that , that desire is

6:13

actually not quite entirely true because

6:15

what we want to always do as modularly our

6:17

immune system to fight off or support our immune

6:20

system to fight off. Because, because

6:22

if we just stimulate everything in the immune system,

6:24

then we would have runaway.

6:26

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So,

6:28

you know, immune immunomodulators that can increase

6:30

immune activity where it's deficient, or

6:33

when it's deficient, they can

6:35

reduce it where it's excessive . Right.

6:37

So overall, like you said, it's balancing aspects

6:39

of immune function to improve

6:42

efficiency. Right. Make sure that

6:44

you're , you're attacking agents are actually attacking

6:47

threats rather than your own body,

6:50

your own tissue, you know?

6:51

Yeah . Only attack the things that are supposed

6:53

to be attacked .

6:54

Yeah. We got to reduce collateral damage basically.

6:57

Yeah. So let's go on , um

6:59

,

7:00

And like negative self

7:03

talk, like , you

7:05

know, like how emotionally negative self-talk

7:08

is like auto-immune action , you know,

7:10

it's like, you're destroying yourself. Right,

7:12

right. Right. So medicinal mushrooms, like

7:14

, um, they, they

7:17

quell negative self action. Yeah

7:20

. Yeah .

7:22

So, you know, if we look at the whole range

7:24

of immunomodulating herbs and mushrooms

7:26

and plants and other things that we might encounter

7:29

, um, they don't all work in the same way and

7:31

we shouldn't expect them to, you know, even just

7:33

that description of what happens. It's, it's

7:35

not like saying that this one type of cell

7:38

gets, gets more wiggly under the, under

7:40

the microscope or, or, you

7:42

know, something like that. It's , it's a broad based

7:44

observational, empirical kind of effects,

7:47

you know, so they can work in different

7:49

ways, right. Some immunomodulators

7:51

, uh, and this includes some of our medicinal mushrooms.

7:53

They can do the job by kind of setting

7:55

off alarms or awakening

7:58

some, some parts of your immune system , uh,

8:01

triggering some surveillance mechanisms that

8:03

you have internally without being

8:05

an actual threat. Right. So

8:08

one example there , um, in,

8:10

from medicinal mushrooms, they , they contain

8:13

these compounds called immunomodulating polysaccharides.

8:15

We'll talk more about those in a moment, but

8:17

one of the things that they can do in the body is

8:19

they can trigger these kind of

8:22

, uh, surveillance mechanisms that we have

8:24

called toll like receptors.

8:27

And when, when we

8:29

, um, when we encounter a pathogen,

8:32

say it's a bacteria. One

8:34

of the ways we noticed that that's gotten into the body

8:37

is these toll , like receptors, they

8:39

detect the kind of shell

8:41

or the kind of fuzzy, you know, coding

8:44

that's on the outside of the, of the bacteria.

8:46

And they say, Hey, that's, that's foreign. That's,

8:49

that's not from inside here. Uh, it

8:51

doesn't look like any of our friendly microbes either. So

8:53

we better do something about it. Right? Like the

8:55

bandana

8:56

That microbe is wearing is

8:58

the wrong color.

9:00

Oh, no. Yeah . Yeah. So,

9:02

so we have these, you know, they're part of our , our surveillance

9:04

mechanism and , um, these constituents

9:07

from our medicinal mushrooms and a few other kinds

9:09

of herbs too , you know, like a straggle list, for instance,

9:11

does this , uh, they can set

9:13

off those, those wake up

9:15

those alarm , uh, kind of,

9:18

kind of functions in the body, but they're

9:20

not then presenting a threat. They're not actively,

9:22

you know, attacking your tissue or taking your

9:25

resources or anything like that. Um,

9:27

so they, they can awaken the immune system

9:29

and kind of get it to pay attention to things that

9:31

might've been sneaking by. You know,

9:34

I want it to be troll , like receptors , it

9:37

be always want that, which would be

9:39

fine, like awaken the troll. So

9:41

that he'll bash the virus lately

9:43

. I think there's a complete logical

9:46

pathway for renaming these

9:48

receptors. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

9:52

We'll , we'll write some letters. Um,

9:54

some immunomodulators work a little bit differently.

9:57

Um, and in that case, they may be specifically helping

9:59

out with a particular kind of white

10:01

blood cell that we've got. Um, we

10:03

go into this in much more detail in our, in

10:05

our course on immune health. So

10:08

if you really want to deep dive on what a T regulatory

10:10

cell is all about, then that's

10:13

the place for it

10:13

In a way that I promise is not scary

10:15

or hard to understand. Yeah.

10:18

But , uh, you know, the T regulatory cells,

10:20

they're , they're important for us. They basically put

10:22

a check on the amount of the kind

10:25

of inflammatory fiery, active

10:27

immune response that we can generate. Um,

10:30

deficiencies in the function of the T reg cells

10:32

is not uncommon in autoimmune

10:34

diseases, right? And , uh , again,

10:36

it's that place where your immune system is too fired

10:38

up and it's pointing in the wrong direction.

10:41

So in other words, these are the cells

10:43

that prevent runaway

10:45

inflammation. And if we're

10:47

not keeping them healthy, then

10:50

your inflammation levels are not

10:52

healthy. And always remembering

10:54

that inflammation is really important. We actually

10:56

can't heal ourselves without

10:59

inflammation. We can't fight off illness

11:01

without inflammation. We require inflammation

11:03

to be healthy, but

11:06

it's gotta be Goldilocks, right? Like

11:08

if, if inflammation is way out

11:10

of control, or even if it's a

11:12

little out of control, like, you

11:14

know, I mean, Goldilocks is a range. It's not

11:16

like exactly one point, but

11:19

still, if we're outside of that range,

11:21

then we're not healthy. So

11:23

these, these T regulatory cells,

11:26

they're , they're really important and keeping them

11:29

healthy is really important. And

11:31

that is one of the things these mushrooms can do .

11:33

Yeah. Yeah. Um,

11:35

another way to look at immunomodulators that

11:37

I think is really important and takes us, you

11:39

know, broader than mushrooms broader than, than

11:41

herbs , uh , or even things that you,

11:44

that you eat , uh, into

11:46

a broader space is one

11:48

way to arrive at an, at an immunomodulatory

11:51

effect is to correct for underlying

11:53

deficiencies. And some of those

11:55

are nutritional deficiencies, and some of them are

11:58

what I would call a kind of exposure, mediated

12:00

deficiency there. I'm thinking

12:02

about things like your exposure

12:04

to variations in temperature , uh,

12:07

your exposure to sunlight , um,

12:10

your exposure to the bitter flavor. You

12:13

know, you can get those from lots of different

12:15

sources and your body is sort

12:17

of agnostic about where they come from. Okay.

12:19

Sunlight, there's only one sun , there's

12:22

only one sun . I mean , okay . Humans made some

12:24

sunlight bulbs and everything. It's not

12:26

the same, not , I don't know. I

12:28

, I have a

12:30

Okay . I mean, okay. As a person who did live

12:32

in st . Petersburg for quite some

12:34

time , um, when

12:36

you live in a place where the sun doesn't come up

12:39

for months , uh , then

12:41

yes , uh , suddenly I've actually

12:44

is better than nothing is better than the brain

12:46

is not as good as the sun. Yeah , yeah.

12:49

Choose the sun. Right .

12:50

But like, th these things, the reason that I

12:52

think about them as immunomodulatory

12:54

is that when, when we're deficient in

12:56

them, whether it's a nutrient, like vitamin D

12:59

or it's an exposure

13:01

like sunlight or , or bitter flavors

13:03

or temperature fluctuations , um,

13:05

if we don't have those, then that can

13:07

induce a lot of different kinds of simultaneous

13:11

dysfunction in our system, you know? And

13:13

that doesn't mean that it makes us break down entirely.

13:15

Lots of people go through their whole lives without any

13:17

bitter. And , uh , they get

13:19

by, you know, they , they do what they can.

13:20

I mean, they don't die from

13:23

it, but yeah ,

13:23

It'd be healthier in a lot of different ways

13:26

, uh , from the immune system to the digestive

13:28

system, to just a general

13:30

level of inflammation in your body , um,

13:33

all the way around if they had bitter,

13:35

if they had sunlight, you know,

13:37

Really comes down to if they had

13:39

cold sometimes or warm sometimes

13:41

, you know, like what it really comes down to is

13:43

that human bodies

13:46

cannot be healthy without diversity.

13:50

Yeah. I just said that. I want

13:52

to, I just want to be really clear, but

13:54

I said all the parts of that, like, we cannot

13:56

be healthy without diversity. We

13:58

cannot be healthy without diversity. That's

14:01

right .

14:01

It's that as above, so below, right? It's like your gut

14:03

flora needs to be diverse and complex to

14:05

have a good, healthy constitution, your

14:08

tastes , uh , pallets , you know , uh,

14:11

that goes into all your different foods needs to have diversity

14:13

in it.

14:14

And your experiences need to

14:16

have diversity and your community. It needs

14:18

to have diversity. And this

14:21

is what makes us healthy. Yes.

14:23

So now that we've got that out of the way,

14:25

You know , so of those , uh, mushrooms,

14:28

it's like our topic today, but they can provide many of those

14:30

things. They can provide vitamin D, like we said

14:32

before, right. Especially if you have your mushrooms

14:34

and you lay them in the sunshine , um,

14:36

then they produce more vitamin D as they dry

14:38

.

14:39

Yeah. I want to be clear that , um,

14:42

it's not perfect. Yeah. It's not,

14:44

it is vitamin D and that is important.

14:47

Um, it is, it is like , um,

14:49

a diversified revenue stream of vitamin

14:52

D. It's like, you can't

14:54

depend on a mushroom, even if you put it in the sun

14:56

to provide you with all of your vitamin D that

14:58

you require, but it can be

15:01

an important part of this complete

15:04

vitamin D protocol. Yeah. But I

15:06

do just want to be clear that , um,

15:08

especially if you live in,

15:11

in Northern latitudes, but also,

15:13

especially if you live in Southern latitudes because it's

15:15

hot and people don't go, don't go outside. Um,

15:19

so even like in the North, even

15:21

if you go outside, you can only make vitamin D

15:23

during certain parts of the summer because

15:25

the sun isn't high enough in the winter. Right

15:28

. But if you live in the South and you could

15:30

make vitamin D much longer, but you don't go outside

15:32

because it's so darn hot that it's not, you know,

15:34

very good to do that. Um,

15:37

so I want to be clear that that supplementation

15:39

may still be required. It might not, it

15:41

might not provide all of the vitamin D yeah

15:43

. But that doesn't mean it. Isn't awesome.

15:46

And I'll take somewhere where I can get it.

15:48

Right, right. Yeah.

15:49

You basically have to eat like an Eskimo if you want to get

15:52

your vitamin D from food or

15:54

, you know .

15:55

Right, right, right. Right. Any of the

15:58

far North , um, native

16:00

people, right . Uh , their style

16:02

of diet , uh,

16:05

was, it was directly compensatory

16:08

for the fact that they weren't getting access to

16:10

sun. And even when they did, it was often very cold,

16:12

so most of their skin was covered. Yeah

16:14

. Um, yeah. Yeah.

16:16

So anyway, there's some of that in, in your mushrooms

16:19

, uh, there's certainly some good proteins in mushrooms,

16:21

you know, and if you actually eat them, then that

16:23

can help. That can be one of those nutrient deficiencies

16:25

that can lead to, you know , reduced function across

16:27

the board. Uh, some of the medicinal

16:30

mushrooms are bitter, right? Like reishi, one

16:32

of , one of them that we're going to highlight in just a moment. That's

16:34

quite bitter ,

16:35

You're drinking it right here. Yes.

16:38

It is very bitter . Um, but

16:40

you know, you don't have to have bitter,

16:43

like she talky, talky , um,

16:45

oyster mushrooms. Those are all

16:48

quite Oh in lions mean

16:50

they're quite mild in flavor. And

16:52

, um , just bringing that new mommy and kind of thing. Yeah.

16:55

Yeah. Just super delicious. Yeah .

16:57

So, you know, the medicinal mushrooms, they, they

17:00

are some very famous , uh, immunomodulatory

17:02

herbs. Um, the ones we're going to talk

17:04

about today, she talked at , am I talking reishi,

17:07

lion's mane also others that we're not

17:09

going to dig in as deep today, but you know, your

17:11

Turkey tail, your oyster mushrooms,

17:14

chaga of course, is quite famous for this kind

17:16

of activity. Um, so

17:19

this is something that seems to be relatively consistent

17:21

across the, the mushrooms

17:23

that we work with as, as food slash

17:25

medicines.

17:26

Yeah . Um, to make a note around

17:29

chaga, we're not going to talk about checkout just

17:31

because , um, it's at risk.

17:33

Uh, it, it takes up to

17:36

an even maybe over, depending on the habitat

17:39

40 years for a chaga

17:41

to fully develop into its reproductive

17:43

, um, capacity , uh,

17:46

and with so much habitat destruction

17:49

, um, even if we weren't

17:51

harvesting, chug on mushrooms, like

17:53

they are the new trendy thing, because they're the new trendy

17:55

thing , uh, we'd already be

17:58

at risk of losing chaga mushrooms.

18:00

So , um, we want to look

18:02

for alternatives 100%

18:04

of the time.

18:05

Yeah. And, you know, honestly, that was part of what I wanted

18:07

to talk about today. We're going to see

18:09

a couple, a couple of different directions

18:12

of, of this kind of movement

18:14

where , uh, you know, some

18:16

summer , some mushrooms are really famous for one particular

18:19

activity. Like lion's mane is

18:21

a neuro restorative or a neurogenerative

18:23

plant. Um, and

18:26

, uh, you know, others are more famous

18:28

for the , the immune activity or isn't as adaptogens

18:30

or whatever else. But , um,

18:33

what we really see when we look at this

18:35

a little more closely is that most mushrooms

18:37

are doing all of those things.

18:38

Right, right. It's just, it's

18:41

like all the stuff that they're like, Oh, chaga

18:43

does this. It does that. You

18:45

, we studied it there. And sometimes

18:48

people are making claims that haven't debt

18:50

don't actually have stuff to back it up. But,

18:52

but it's just because we happen to study

18:55

it in that one location. And

18:57

then when you look across other locations, you're like,

18:59

Oh, wait, this one can do that too.

19:02

And this is really similar to the quorum

19:04

sensing inhibition activity

19:07

that was originally found in Baikal skullcap.

19:09

And it was just phenomenally

19:11

novel. And they were like, Holy cow, this is so

19:14

quorum. Sensing inhibition

19:16

means that a

19:18

bacteria cannot form a biofilm. They can't

19:20

glom together to protect

19:23

themselves from our immune system because quorum,

19:25

sensing, inhibition breaks up

19:27

those , um, like safety

19:30

nets that they've put around themselves. And

19:32

it was, you know, for a long time, it was like,

19:35

well, everybody's got to get Baikal skullcap because

19:37

that's the plant that can break it up. And then the more

19:39

plants they study, the more they find out, Oh,

19:41

many, many, many plants can actually

19:44

do this job. Um,

19:46

which makes total sense

19:48

because the human immune system

19:52

works best on a one-to-one basis.

19:54

Right. It wants a fair fight. It wants an immune

19:57

responder to fight with one pathogen

20:00

and our

20:03

bodies developed in relationship with our environment.

20:06

And so we didn't have

20:08

to develop a system that could fight

20:11

multiple invaders simultaneously

20:14

because we had plants that were able to help

20:17

us break that up. And they were a

20:19

regular part of our lives. So

20:21

our bodies were like, great, I've got this

20:23

tool coming from here. And I've

20:25

got this tool that I made myself and together

20:28

I can fight lots of things with it. So

20:32

we're finding that same thing

20:34

in the mushroom world that the things that we

20:36

think one particular mushroom is famous

20:38

for, it turns out most

20:41

of the mushrooms can also do that job.

20:43

Yeah .

20:45

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All

20:47

right . Well, let's actually just start talking about, she talks

20:50

here and we're going to talk about she a

20:52

and my talk aid together. Um,

20:54

now they do have some differences between them.

20:56

Yes. But like in terms of food

20:59

and the taste and the flavor and all

21:01

those basic, you know , energetic qualities of

21:03

the , of the mushroom , um, in

21:05

terms of their, their activity in

21:07

the, in the body , uh, the herbal actions

21:10

that they generate for us, they're all basically

21:12

the same. I know it's like, I

21:14

hesitate to even say it out loud, but they are basically

21:16

the same thing .

21:17

I have a very similar profile of

21:19

activities. And I

21:21

think that what we're going to find by the end of this

21:23

is that many, many mushrooms have

21:25

similar profiles of activities, but that

21:27

the research on she talking in my talkie

21:30

has been done very closely in parallel.

21:33

Yeah . I will make one little note though,

21:35

about a difference before we dig too deep in

21:38

which is with regard to

21:40

purchasing, she Tucky and my Tucky

21:42

mushrooms. It's not always

21:44

, um, you're not always able to get these

21:46

fresh where you live.

21:49

And so both of these can be

21:51

purchased dry, but

21:53

when you purchase dried, she tacky

21:55

, they have a very strong flavor.

21:58

And when you purchase dried my talkie , they

22:00

have a much milder flavor.

22:03

So if you are a person who maybe

22:05

mushrooms are not your favorite thing in the world, but you're trying

22:08

to build them into your life

22:10

, um, then you

22:12

might want to, and you are

22:14

going to purchase dried mushrooms. Then you

22:16

might want to start with dried my tequila just

22:18

because flavor-wise like, action-wise really,

22:21

really similar down the line. But flavor

22:24

wise, my talkie is milder

22:26

might be easier.

22:27

Yeah. Uh, when you're fortunate,

22:30

you can find these at a grocery store. Yeah

22:32

. You can get a fresh yeah. Yeah. And

22:35

there , you know, it's , it's not really too hard to, if you're

22:37

like, I don't know how to choose the right mushroom. What

22:39

, what do I look for? Uh, look

22:41

for the one that looks most appealing to you. Just,

22:43

just like totally superficial, like, Oh,

22:45

I I'm reaching for that one. That must be the best one.

22:48

Uh it's it's obvious. Right. It's kind

22:50

of like, I mean, they bruise , you know, they'll

22:52

have soft spots or like mushy spots,

22:54

Dark Brown. Was she spots. Yeah

22:56

. You know , you don't want that or they'll look, they'll

22:59

look wilty and not plump

23:01

, um, or even get

23:03

their edges, like I'll dry it out. Maybe

23:06

a little bit discolored or yellowed. Um

23:08

, just like any other fruit or vegetable.

23:11

Those are signs of this

23:14

has been hanging out in refrigeration for

23:16

too long. Yeah,

23:17

Yeah , yeah. Trust your instincts, you know, the

23:19

following. So , uh,

23:22

what can we say about these plants? Well, there's been a

23:24

ton of study about these. Um , a lot

23:26

of it has occurred in Japan

23:28

, uh , and in China , um,

23:31

a couple of other countries on that side of the world. Uh,

23:33

but it's really extensively

23:36

been investigated both. She talked a

23:38

and, and my talkie happened . So

23:40

among the things that they've found , um,

23:43

if we look at that immunomodulatory, these

23:45

are really standout , uh, standout

23:48

examples of immunomodulatory herbs.

23:51

Um, she's talking to my talk. I have both been found to promote

23:54

the production , uh, not just

23:56

of immune responder cells, but

23:58

also of the bone marrow, where they were

24:01

their first-generation , uh , happens

24:04

immune cells. They, they

24:06

have, they have a long and complex path

24:08

to their final career inside, inside

24:11

the human body. You know, a lot of times

24:13

there's these progenitor immune cells that start

24:15

out in the bone marrow and they

24:17

kind of like peek their head out and look around in the bloodstream

24:19

and get a sense of who they are in the world and

24:22

kind of migrate their way to different spots in your

24:24

body , um, where they

24:26

, they kind of go to school and start to decide

24:28

what kind of immune cell am I going to be? Am I going to attack

24:30

things? Am I going to engulf things? Am

24:33

I going to sound the alarm when something weird is going

24:35

on? Um, they have all these different

24:37

kinds of jobs.

24:38

I just love how our bodies, our communities,

24:40

just like, you know, you can

24:42

just think of yourselves as individual people

24:44

in a community, and you

24:47

can think of your immune cells and they're born

24:49

in the bone marrow community. And then they go

24:51

out into the world and they decide what they're going to

24:53

make of themselves. And

24:55

, um, I love that.

24:58

Like, you can just do that over and over again.

25:00

There are so many parallels between

25:02

the larger body of the planet and

25:05

the inner body of our own

25:07

individual bodies. Um,

25:10

yes, I think that's beautiful.

25:12

Yeah. And I think this, this capacity

25:15

that the, that the , she talked in my talkie

25:17

and last we'll see other medicinal mushrooms have to

25:20

, um, to enhance that generation

25:22

of the progeneter immune cells. I

25:24

think that is one of the key reasons why

25:27

these, these herbs can affect

25:29

our immune system in a really broad way and

25:32

in a balancing way, a modulatory way.

25:34

Right. When we look, when we look at research

25:36

on immune activating or immune stimulating

25:39

herbs or plants sometimes

25:41

, uh, you know, maybe look at something like cat's claw

25:44

where there's like a specific, I forget the name

25:46

of the number, you know , but there's like a specific type

25:48

of immune responder. So like CD 57,

25:51

57 , yeah. Particular type of cell that,

25:53

that, that herb specifically

25:55

activates. And that's interesting to us,

25:58

you know, for certain kinds of , um,

26:00

uh, pathogen that, that do seem

26:02

to be particularly attacked by that specific

26:04

type of immune cell. So that's like a little more

26:07

of a, like, we need it in this instance, right?

26:09

This is the case where we're going to look at that one. Uh,

26:12

but the story with the immunomodulatory

26:14

mushrooms here is , is different and much

26:16

broader in scope. And I think that looking

26:18

at that capacity to enhance progenitor

26:20

immune cells is , is one

26:23

way that we could start to explain that,

26:25

Right. It's it is like

26:28

metaphorically speaking, except it's not actually

26:30

a metaphor it's actually accurate, like right

26:32

dead on is that these mushrooms

26:35

are providing a healthy

26:38

environment in which

26:40

white blood cells are, are born

26:43

in which they are formed , um,

26:46

and created. And

26:48

then they are, they , these

26:51

mushrooms are providing them with nourishment

26:54

so that they can grow up and be strong.

26:56

And so you can imagine , um,

26:59

you know, these mushrooms are providing plenty

27:01

of vegetables. Like if you think about it, like actual

27:03

children and think about all the things

27:05

that children need to be strong and

27:07

healthy , um, that,

27:10

that is like the corollary, right?

27:12

And that's, that is why , um,

27:15

that broad effect, because

27:18

if, if you have

27:21

a bunch of these cells that are given every

27:23

single resource that they need, so that they

27:25

can be strong and ready to do their work,

27:28

then they're going to go out into your body and do their

27:30

work really well. And if they are

27:32

starved and they're not getting the nutrients

27:34

that they need, they, they

27:37

may be created, but,

27:39

but maybe not as many will be created.

27:41

And the ones that are will go out into the body

27:43

and they won't be very good at doing their jobs.

27:45

They won't be very strong. So,

27:48

you know, just like people need to receive

27:51

all of the things, all of the nutrients,

27:53

all of the love, all of the education, all

27:55

of the support, Soto , all of

27:57

yourselves in order to do good

27:59

work in your body. Okay .

28:01

Yeah. Yeah. For real. Um,

28:03

so, you know, when, when folks have gone looking for

28:05

like the effect or like the

28:07

chemical that , that makes this kind of thing happen

28:10

, um, and she taught a, and

28:12

in my talking , um, there are

28:14

some, some very famous constituents

28:16

we're going to see these in other medicinal mushrooms as well.

28:19

Um, so the broad category is polysaccharides.

28:22

That's a type of a carbohydrate really.

28:26

Uh, but these are specifically the immunomodulatory

28:28

polysaccharides, and that's, that's

28:30

a category based on activity,

28:33

not on like, they all have the same type

28:35

of structure, you know? Um, it's, it's

28:37

what we observe when they come into the body functional

28:40

category. Yeah. You may have heard the term

28:42

beta glucans , uh,

28:44

in, in context of medicinal

28:46

mushrooms. Um, even

28:48

if you just buy the supplement and read on

28:50

the side, it probably says in there , show them to

28:52

contain a high concentration of immunomodulatory,

28:54

beta glucans. And you're like, that sounds cool. I

28:57

don't know what that is, but sounds great. Yeah.

29:00

So, you know , they are this, this kind of,

29:02

of a immunomodulatory agent

29:05

and these are responsible for some of those

29:07

effects. We mentioned previously that

29:09

toll, like receptor activation , um,

29:12

you know, that way of , of waking up the immune system.

29:16

Um, so [inaudible] , uh,

29:18

Linton on is the name for one of those. And in my

29:21

taco , Griffel on , those are only interesting if

29:23

you know the Latin name of your mushroom, right. She

29:25

talked to his Linton ULA . My taco

29:28

is Griffin . So it's

29:30

just basically saying, Oh, these are found in those, just

29:32

write the name and put an end at the end and call it a day.

29:36

Um, yeah.

29:37

And to be clear, like these are just

29:39

the ones that have been studied when

29:41

we study herbs

29:43

and in this case mushrooms in the West

29:46

, um, remember that

29:48

we study them mostly

29:51

for the purpose of creating pharmaceuticals

29:54

because that's, who's paying for the studies, that's, who's

29:56

doing the studies. And so what

29:58

they want to do is identify

30:00

an isolatable chemical

30:03

in that plant that can be extracted

30:05

and turned into a pharmaceutical, which

30:08

is neither good, nor bad. Um,

30:11

I'm not putting any judgment

30:13

on that, but the reason that they want to do it

30:15

is because that is the only way they

30:17

can make money, because then they can patent

30:19

that extraction process and,

30:22

and make money selling that drug.

30:25

So when we see

30:27

a study and it says, Oh, the

30:30

beta glucan Griffin in,

30:33

in my talky mushrooms has

30:35

these actions. Um,

30:37

that can be true, but I

30:39

don't want people to think, Oh,

30:41

that is the only thing in that mushroom

30:43

that has those actions. It's just

30:46

that, that is a thing that was able

30:48

to be extracted , um,

30:51

by a method that would be patentable.

30:54

And therefore that's what was studied. There

30:56

may be many other beta glucans and,

30:59

and many other types of polysaccharides

31:01

that are also doing similar work, but,

31:04

but those ones just didn't get studied.

31:06

And maybe haven't even been named, like, there

31:09

are so many constituents

31:11

in plants and in mushrooms, we

31:13

haven't discovered because

31:15

it isn't profitable to have discovered them yet.

31:17

Right. And so often you look at it

31:19

and you're like, well, we call it , we use this

31:21

one word, but actually, you know, that

31:24

refers to like 30 different compounds

31:26

that are slightly different from each other. And , you

31:28

know , so you can really get into the weeds with that. Um

31:30

, pretty far, I guess that'd be,

31:33

get into the mushroom patch with that

31:35

. Okay. Whatever, get into the mycelium.

31:37

There we go. Yeah . Um, so generally

31:39

speaking, these immunomodulatory polysaccharides

31:42

for mushrooms, they reduce inflammation.

31:45

They like, we've been saying they modulate immunity.

31:48

Uh, many of them are going to activate the

31:50

macrophages. Those are the little Pac-Man

31:52

, uh , cells in your body that go around and eat

31:54

up invaders. Um, that

31:56

process is called Faygo cytosis.

31:59

And , and these also enhance that, that activity

32:01

of those of those cells. So

32:03

that's all good stuff. Uh, really

32:05

fantastic. You know, physically speaking,

32:08

what you get from this is a couple

32:10

of different things, right? On the

32:12

one hand, yes. If you're prone to illness, if you're

32:14

the person who catches every cold that goes around the

32:16

school or the office, then it'd be

32:18

very helpful for you to get these mushrooms into

32:20

your life on a regular consistent

32:23

and ongoing basis. These are not

32:25

agents that you take once and you're done. These are things

32:27

that you need to get in all of these medicinal mushrooms.

32:29

Like these are not fast acting, turn everything

32:31

around in a day, kind of agents. You

32:34

take them over a period of time.

32:36

Uh , you allow those effects to build up in

32:39

system with some time,

32:40

You know how , um,

32:43

not every body is different, but

32:45

maybe you look in the mirror

32:47

and your hair is kind of limp, or

32:49

maybe it's kind of dry or,

32:52

or whatever. And, or maybe it's hard

32:54

for your hair to grow. And so you say, wow

32:56

, my hair is not really very healthy.

32:58

What should I do to help my hair be more

33:01

healthy? Or maybe you're one of those people

33:03

who has fingernails that aren't very

33:05

strong and they sort of peel really

33:07

easily, or they break. You just can't grow

33:09

your fingernails because they break so easily.

33:13

Um, and you say, huh, my fingernails

33:15

are not healthy. I wonder

33:17

what I should do to make my fingernails

33:19

more healthy. And those are things that we can see.

33:22

So it's easy for us to

33:24

identify, Oh, huh.

33:27

This part of me is not very healthy. We

33:29

can't see our bone marrow. Those are very

33:31

hard for us to say, maybe my bone marrow

33:34

is not super strong. Maybe my bone marrow

33:36

is not super healthy. Wonder what I should

33:38

do to strengthen my bone marrow. But

33:41

when we see a pattern

33:44

of like constantly getting sick,

33:46

not really able to fight things off,

33:49

having sickness that lingers for a really long time,

33:52

then one of the things that we

33:54

can observe

33:57

there is, Oh, I wonder if

33:59

maybe my bone marrow isn't super

34:01

strong because

34:03

if my bone marrow were very strong, I

34:05

would be producing strong immune

34:08

cells who are able to fight.

34:10

And there are many other factors involved,

34:13

but I wonder if this might be one factor,

34:15

I can't see it. Like I can see my hair, but

34:18

the nice thing is that, you

34:21

know, mushrooms are a very safe

34:23

way, especially my talking . And [inaudible]

34:25

, they're a very safe way that

34:27

you can say, well,

34:30

just in case this problem is because my

34:32

bone marrow, isn't very strong. Isn't very healthy.

34:35

This is one thing I can do to enhance

34:37

that.

34:38

Yeah. I'm glad that you mentioned the safety

34:41

question here. Um, because

34:44

these, these two in particular, she talk and my

34:46

hockey are extremely safe. Um,

34:48

these are, these are not herbs that put you at risk for

34:50

drug interaction. And it's worth saying

34:53

even if the person is taking immune

34:55

suppressive drugs , uh,

34:57

then we don't see,

35:00

she talks to her myTalk area in particular as being,

35:02

contra-indicated just, just

35:04

prima fascia, just on the face of it there. Um,

35:07

we might need to know a little bit more about the case and

35:09

what's going on to , to be perfectly

35:11

certain, but in a lot of cases,

35:14

that is a combination that that

35:16

is not going to cause problems or, or

35:18

create a lot of risk for somebody.

35:20

Okay . And the nice thing is that these

35:22

mushrooms are common enough that they're sold in

35:24

grocery stores.

35:26

Yeah. I was going to say that , I think that's another way

35:28

to differentiate between these and an immune

35:30

stimulant , like second nature where you definitely

35:33

don't want to give that to somebody taking immune suppressive

35:35

drugs because you're, you're going to down

35:37

the action of the drug. Right . So,

35:39

so these, these are , um,

35:42

really valuable because of that, that

35:44

much broader safety profile that they have. Yeah

35:47

. So, and yeah, you buy it in store ,

35:48

You buy it in the store. I really like

35:50

working with herbs that are

35:53

food when somebody

35:55

is taking a lot of pharmaceuticals, because

35:58

we can't really expect to doctors

36:00

to know if it is safe

36:02

to take a certain herb with a certain drug,

36:04

because I don't really know anything about herbs. That's

36:06

not their toolset . We shouldn't

36:08

expect them to know that. Um,

36:11

but it's reasonable

36:13

for a doctor to know whether or not you

36:15

can eat a mushroom, right? Like there

36:17

are some drugs where the doctor

36:19

will tell you, make sure not to have

36:22

grapefruit with this drug or , um,

36:25

you know, certain blood thinners where they say

36:27

, uh , you should not actually eat a spinach

36:29

salad every day while you're taking this blood

36:31

thinner. And so,

36:34

so when we're working with, especially

36:36

when someone is taking a lot of pharmaceuticals and we're

36:39

a little nervous, like, Oh, I don't

36:41

know which herbs are safe or not. When

36:43

we're working with food, you know,

36:46

these mushrooms are tremendously medicinal,

36:48

but they're also food. It's really

36:50

easy to go to a doctor and say, is

36:52

it okay for me to eat? She talky mushrooms. And

36:54

we can't guarantee that the doctor will know everything

36:57

about Shataki mushrooms, but we can

36:59

guarantee that they probably are at least

37:01

familiar with what that is. Um,

37:03

so it's, it's easier to get

37:05

advice around the safety there .

37:08

Yeah. And look, I mean , uh,

37:10

these, these two in particular, a number of other medicinal

37:12

mushrooms have been extensively studied

37:14

in drug combination contexts,

37:17

especially around chemotherapy , uh,

37:19

for people who are dealing with cancer. Um,

37:22

I mean, it's, it's, as far as I understand

37:24

it, this is the standard of care in

37:26

, in Japan and in large parts of China

37:29

and a number of other countries that if you're

37:31

going to undergo chemo, they're also

37:33

going to give you medicinal mushroom extracts,

37:35

or, you know , at least advice to get them

37:38

into your diet consistently because

37:40

they have proof and over and over

37:42

again , uh, seeing that this improves outcomes,

37:44

that it improves the efficacy of the chemo, that

37:47

it reduces the side effects that you experienced

37:49

while you're going through it. Um, you

37:51

know, have the course be shorter and more effective.

37:53

And, you know, I mean, it's just all the

37:55

way around really, really beneficial there. Uh

37:58

, that, and then also, you know, with cancer more broadly,

38:00

these in the other medicinal mushrooms

38:02

, uh , can help to prevent recurrence of cancer

38:05

, um , after you've fought it off , um,

38:07

at the very least, you know, so that's

38:10

all fantastic. Um, and again, all

38:12

this is really circling around their like immune element

38:14

here. Um, but you've also seen

38:16

, um, research or proof around.

38:19

She taught a , in my talk, a helping with blood

38:21

parameters, like when people have high

38:23

blood pressure, like when people have elevated

38:25

cholesterol or bad cholesterol going

38:27

on , um, and you see improvement

38:30

there and that's not actually separate as part of

38:32

the same suite of effects. And the connection

38:34

is through, right. Remember

38:36

inflammation is a process.

38:39

It is a, it is an activity of

38:41

your immune system. Um , so

38:43

when we think about immunity, when we think about inflammatory

38:46

health problems, those aren't actually two

38:48

separate worlds, right. It's not

38:50

like you've got your immune herbs over here and your anti-inflammatory

38:53

herbs over there. Those are, those are in

38:55

the same world. Yeah. Yeah. All

38:58

right. Um, you

39:00

know, when we're , when we're taking [inaudible]

39:03

, uh, we prefer to just eat them or

39:05

to put them into the broth into soup

39:07

, uh, into , uh, you know,

39:09

even just, if you're a satsang things on the stove

39:11

for awhile , um, these ones

39:14

they're , they're not Woody, you know, they're

39:16

relatively tender. Um, and they,

39:18

they break down to a easily chewed

39:20

consistency pretty quick. When you, when

39:22

you, when you cook them,

39:24

I do like to put them in very first

39:26

, um , because the longer that

39:28

you cook them, the more you

39:30

will be able to get out of them, mushrooms

39:32

are not super easy to digest , um,

39:36

and cooking. We can, we can think about

39:38

it as pre digestion. Like it's breaking

39:40

stuff down ahead of time so that you get a headstart

39:43

when you eat it. Um, and

39:45

so the

39:47

longer that you can cook them, obviously like broth

39:49

is the best, that's the most ideal way

39:52

to consume a mushroom, but, but

39:54

we put mushrooms in our dinner all the time.

39:57

And , um, I

39:59

just put them in at the very, very beginning,

40:01

you know, like, wow , while I'm

40:03

still getting out all the rest of the ingredients

40:06

for the dinner. First, I chop up the

40:08

mushrooms and put them in the pan and let

40:10

them get going on low. Maybe I'll put just

40:12

a smidge of broth if I have some leftover, a

40:14

little bit of water, a little bit of geek stick.

40:17

Yeah, exactly. And just let them

40:19

hang out there and cook for the

40:21

longest amount of time of any portion

40:23

of the dinner. And then I go and get out

40:26

the whatever else is going to be in the dinner. And I chop

40:28

up the carrots and I do all the, you know, whatever.

40:30

And , um, that, that

40:33

allows them to just cook a little bit

40:35

longer. It makes them a little bit easier to digest.

40:37

Yeah. And if you've got fresh, my

40:40

takeaway or she talk , Hey , that's going to be easy if they're dried.

40:42

I don't know

40:43

If they're dried. They really have to go into broth.

40:45

I really, you could

40:48

put them in broth for a long time

40:50

and then put them into something,

40:52

but they would not be as appealing

40:55

as fresh. Yeah.

40:57

And as we've been saying, we really do like to actually consume

41:00

the mushroom material, that's going to give you

41:02

the best possible chance

41:04

of getting everything possible out

41:06

of them. Right. Um, if

41:09

you, if you make a decoction, that's

41:11

not bad, it's not, it's not useless or worthless

41:13

or anything like that at all. Um,

41:15

but you know, when you actually eat the mushroom,

41:18

well, everything's gone in, you know, so

41:20

now it's up to your digestion to take it apart

41:22

and make it into, you know

41:24

, components you can absorb and all of that. But , um,

41:27

that is the, that is the best way. And , and especially

41:30

if you're thinking about these as, as basic

41:32

nutrition, as providing mineral content

41:34

and providing protein and so on, yeah.

41:37

You got to eat them to get that, you know, to get

41:39

that really. Uh, but

41:41

you know, you could also choose to make a strong

41:43

decoction. I would say, you know

41:45

, uh , put in the water, put

41:48

in the mushrooms, boil it for a good

41:50

long time. Um, even like

41:52

maybe let it reduce down to half as much liquid

41:54

and then add more water and keep it boiling and

41:57

then let it reduce again so that you don't have to drink

41:59

a gallon all at once. Right. Cook

42:01

it down good and concentrated , uh

42:03

, and take it that way. That's a , that's a strong medicine,

42:06

Cook it down slowly. You

42:08

know, you can cook something down in 25

42:10

or 30 minutes if you just put it at a rolling boil.

42:13

The key here is to do it over the course

42:15

of a whole day, because it is the length

42:17

of time in cooking that

42:20

we're really going for. Yeah. Nice.

42:24

Awesome. Okay. Yeah.

42:26

Speaking of the length of time cooking that

42:28

is really key for reishi. Reishi

42:31

is a super Woody

42:34

foamy. Like it's,

42:36

This is not one like my Takeda that

42:38

you can just bite into, you know , or

42:40

that you would just like, you know, saute a bit

42:42

and then it's tuneable reishi.

42:45

No , it doesn't matter how long you cook it. You're not gonna,

42:47

you're not gonna eat this.

42:48

It's like balsa wood. It's like, it's

42:51

like Woody styrofoam. That's

42:53

Very good . What do you styrofoam? Yeah. That's what it

42:55

Is. Um, and so no matter how long you

42:57

boil it, it's never going to be something

42:59

that's super appealing to actually chew

43:02

up. But the longer that you

43:04

simmer it , um , longer and

43:06

slower that you simmer it, the more

43:08

that you will get from it. Yeah. So

43:11

what will we get from it?

43:12

Well, we get well, and there is, there's

43:15

a bunch of immunomodulatory effects , uh

43:17

, coming out of reishi, a bunch of anti-tumor

43:19

effects. Uh, I can talk in a moment

43:22

about some, some , uh,

43:24

particular studies , uh, around

43:26

reishi and the immune system

43:28

and cancer and things like

43:30

that. Um, but that's been really

43:32

extensively studied. Um,

43:35

reishi is another one that has some notable

43:37

benefits around the blood and the circulatory system.

43:40

Uh, it's really nice , uh, as an agent

43:43

to reduce high blood pressure , um, particularly

43:45

where that's coming from , um,

43:47

from tension, from hypertension and

43:49

there you have the blood vessels, right? It's

43:52

like a tube, but there's muscle wrapped all around it.

43:54

And when that muscle gets tense, while

43:56

it squeezes the tube, and now it's smaller, now the pressure

43:58

goes up, right? So , um,

44:01

there is a relaxing quality to

44:03

reishi , um , that extends out to those blood vessels.

44:07

Um, reishi is a fantastic herb for your liver

44:10

and you know, that because it's bitter, it's

44:12

super bitter, it's bitter like crazy. Um

44:15

, but that's going to have some liver stimulation and

44:17

help with digestion help with absorption

44:19

of fats and other kinds of nutrients. So

44:22

that's really fantastic as well. Um,

44:25

reishi is connected to the blood in traditional Chinese

44:27

medicine, and it's considered to be a blood

44:29

builder. Now the concept blood

44:31

in that system is a little broader than just

44:33

this red fluid that moves through our body. Um,

44:36

but , uh, it is connected with things

44:39

like energy generation and the ability

44:41

to , to have stamina and to have, have

44:44

that kind of muscular force. Um,

44:46

one very direct connection to the

44:48

blood that we see with reishi is that it helps

44:50

to improve oxygenation of the

44:52

blood, which is really what carries that

44:55

energy to the individual cells. Right. Um,

44:57

and a great place to see that is, is to travel

45:00

to high altitude. And then you'll feel

45:02

what it's like when you have poorly oxygen .

45:04

Oh my goodness. Yes. Especially

45:06

like that is I just, I

45:10

don't tolerate altitude well at

45:12

all. Just kind of a bummer because when I was a

45:14

kid, I always wanted to like, you

45:16

know, I was fascinated by Mount Everest

45:18

and I, you know , like that is not for me.

45:20

I do not tolerate altitude

45:22

well. Um, and,

45:25

and whenever we've had caused to

45:27

be at altitude several

45:29

times, cause we, we sometimes go

45:31

out West to teach at different herb conferences

45:34

and the one, these particular

45:36

ones in my mind, they are , um

45:38

, at held at locations that

45:40

are at high altitudes. Uh,

45:43

and boy, do I ever get sick, but

45:45

, uh , reishi

45:47

makes that not happen. It's amazing.

45:50

And , um, and so

45:52

that, that ties in

45:54

with the, the respiratory aspects

45:57

of reishi. Um, and especially,

45:59

even as we're thinking about COVID in

46:02

all aspects of COVID like, while

46:04

you're actually sick, but also for a long

46:06

haul COVID or , or just for the recovery

46:08

phase , um, when it's,

46:11

it's just so hard to breathe and you feel like, no

46:13

matter how much you breathe, you still aren't actually getting

46:15

any air in. It feels

46:18

just like altitude sickness. And

46:20

so , um, that

46:23

lack of oxygenation is something

46:25

that reishi can be very helpful with.

46:27

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel real

46:29

strongly about that part of ratio. I feel strongly

46:31

about many aspects of reishi. Reishi

46:33

is a plant that I, well, it's a mushroom

46:36

that I work with every day. I really

46:38

love reishi in my life. Um,

46:41

but, but I think, especially

46:43

because I have such

46:45

strong altitude sickness presentation

46:48

and reishi like wipes it out

46:50

completely that for me,

46:52

it's one of those plants and I'm like, Whoa,

46:54

that's power, you know?

46:57

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty great. Um,

47:01

all right . Well, you know, reishi, before

47:03

I get into a little more detail on the immune stuff

47:05

, um, this is an earth that is also well

47:07

known as an adaptogen . And

47:09

, um, this is an, I

47:12

think that's connected actually to that , that long

47:14

oxygenation thing to that blood

47:16

building effect, you know, those, those lead

47:18

to this feeling of having greater stamina, having

47:21

more steady energy

47:23

throughout the day. Um, and then the

47:25

other place that we can see the effects of an adaptogen

47:27

is in the way that we respond to stress

47:29

physically physiologically , uh,

47:32

but also mentally and emotionally and

47:34

reishi does have this capacity to improve

47:36

our stress response on a , a

47:39

physical level yes. On a endurance

47:41

level, but also a mental and emotional level. Um,

47:44

you've had a number of, of experiences

47:46

with reishi where you felt like

47:48

it really made a big impact on

47:50

like emotional balance, emotional regulation.

47:53

Yeah. Um, I read

47:55

somewhere an

47:58

older book , um,

48:01

about reishi

48:03

helps to balance the

48:06

rational and the emotional mind.

48:08

And I, it was just one sentence

48:10

just as a throwaway somewhere like

48:13

with nothing more written than that. And it

48:15

was like, Whoa, that's intriguing.

48:17

Tell me more. And there wasn't any more. Um,

48:20

but as a person who often struggles

48:23

to balance the rational and the emotional

48:25

, um, I tend

48:27

to get both of them very far out of

48:29

balance. Um, sometimes simultaneously,

48:32

which is super uncomfortable. Uh

48:34

, I thought, well,

48:36

if nobody's going to tell me any more about this, then I'm

48:38

going to have to find out myself. And I

48:40

think that's a big part of why I don't

48:43

want to live without reishi because

48:46

it turns out that it really does

48:48

make being a person who

48:50

has very strong emotions and also very

48:52

strong, rational,

48:55

like mr. Spock kind

48:57

of tendencies simultaneously. It makes

48:59

a living in that kind of a head much

49:02

more comfortable or much

49:04

less uncomfortable, depending on which day. Yeah

49:08

, yeah.

49:09

You know, on the, on the federal

49:11

chemical level or the myco chemical level

49:14

, um, what we're gonna

49:16

, what we've seen here , um, in

49:18

investigations of reishi , uh

49:20

they've, you know , according to some authorities, there

49:23

are more than 200 difference identified

49:25

polysaccharides and 150

49:29

tri terpenoids. That would include some

49:31

that are called, tried terpenoids happenings

49:33

. And that's a , that's a particular class

49:36

of , um, phyto or

49:38

Miko chemical that is really famous

49:40

as contributing to adaptogenic effects.

49:43

Um, you see similar kinds of chemistry

49:45

in your gin saying, and jog Alon

49:47

and , um, you know , uh

49:49

, other kinds of adaptogenic plants,

49:51

You know, those constituents are ones

49:53

that make juggle on a , sometimes a little

49:55

hard for your stomach that

49:58

make it a little hard for you to metabolize

50:00

that. Um, and so you

50:02

always mix in ginger or something

50:04

like that with your jargon , but with reishi,

50:07

it isn't really necessary because it has

50:09

such that the bitterness profound bitter

50:11

aspect that, that is

50:14

, um, increasing the digestibility

50:16

of the, of the ratio of the

50:19

SA seven in content. Yeah ,

50:20

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Right.

50:23

Well, okay. So I had mentioned a moment ago,

50:25

let's talk some just for a moment,

50:27

just for the fun of it. Don't, don't get too hooked on this,

50:30

but I find it entertaining some

50:32

times to look at like very molecular science

50:34

around, around these kinds of things. So

50:36

here's a couple of papers around , um, reishi

50:39

for immune effect. This was looking at

50:41

, um, impacts on tumors,

50:43

right? So here's a quote, the

50:46

anti-tumor effect of ganoderma the Latin

50:48

name is mediated by immunological

50:50

mechanisms, including promoting

50:53

the function of mononuclear,

50:55

macrophages and natural killers.

50:57

That's a type of immune cell.

50:59

Yeah. Even though it sounds a little like

51:01

a horror movie.

51:03

Sure . We're killers going . Yeah . Uh, promoting

51:05

M one type macrophage polarization

51:07

, uh , versus M two type. This is better

51:10

for some reason, which we don't need to worry about , uh,

51:12

promoting maturation and differentiation of

51:14

dendritic cells. It's another kind of immune responder

51:17

, um, increasing anti-gun presentation.

51:20

That's one of the jobs they have activating

51:22

lymphocytes , um, promoting

51:25

production of cytokines. That's like a chemical

51:28

element that's involved in the, in the inflammatory

51:30

action of the immune response. And I love

51:32

this phrase, inhibiting

51:34

tumor escape from immune surveillance.

51:37

That's the best part. I like that one a lot. Yeah.

51:40

Actually that is the best part for

51:42

a lot of reasons. Yeah . Um, so,

51:44

you know, a lot of times when we're talking about

51:47

digestive health and nutrition, we

51:49

think about metabolic flexibility.

51:53

Um, it's really good. If you can

51:55

easily switch from different

51:58

types of fuel sources without

52:00

, uh, a big like

52:02

crisis, you know, if you

52:04

have a super carb carbohydrate, heavy

52:07

diet , um, and

52:09

then you don't have any carbs available to you for

52:12

a little while you are pretty cranky,

52:14

right? Because your body is habituated

52:16

on only digesting carbohydrates.

52:19

It's super easy. And, and , um,

52:21

it's just hard to break free from carbs.

52:23

We get really addicted there. So when we think

52:25

about metabolic flexibility, that

52:28

is like, you know what, whatever

52:30

I find that's food, that's fine.

52:32

I can digest that today. That's, that's

52:34

pretty great. So I like

52:36

to look at these

52:38

scientific, like super

52:41

specific scientific things in

52:43

terms of like a critical thinking flexibility.

52:46

Like I want to be able to simultaneously

52:48

very easily move between looking

52:50

at the very large picture

52:53

and looking at, in terms

52:55

of like , uh, that

52:58

don't require scientific words to explain.

53:00

They may be, could be explained by scientific words,

53:02

but it's not required. And, but

53:04

very flexibly be able to also look

53:06

at the specific scientific

53:09

aspect. And so when I look

53:11

at a phrase like inhibiting tumor

53:13

escape from immune surveillance, boy,

53:15

that was a tangent to get back to this phrase. Um,

53:19

that feels really important to me because

53:21

everybody is looking for the herbs that will make

53:23

their cancer go away. And

53:26

the best way to

53:28

work with herbs to make your cancer go away

53:30

is to start working with herbs before

53:33

you get cancer. Because at

53:35

all times in your body, like

53:38

cancer is not a thing that invades

53:40

your body. It is a state that

53:42

a cell can accidentally slip

53:44

into. Like maybe it just got a little overenthusiastic

53:47

. Um, and you,

53:50

that is what they mean by tumor escape

53:52

from immune surveillance. Uh,

53:54

so one individual cell can get too

53:56

enthusiastic and be like, oops. Uh,

53:59

I went rogue. I went cancerous, you

54:01

know, and the dark side, you know ? Yeah , exactly.

54:04

And your immune system is like, Oh no, no

54:06

, we're not going to have that. You know, like you

54:08

out of here and maybe

54:10

a handful of cells get,

54:13

you know, like gang up together. And they're

54:15

like, Hey, let's, let's

54:17

do cancer together. And your immune system

54:19

is like, you will not escape immune

54:22

surveillance. I see you. We're

54:24

going to get you. And as long

54:26

as your immune system is able

54:29

to accurately identify the cells

54:31

that have sort of slipped into the dark side and

54:34

to get rid of them, then

54:37

you do not, you do

54:39

not become a person with diagnosable cancer.

54:41

Even if in this moment, you have some cells

54:43

that are slipping into that state. No problem. Your

54:45

immune system is dealing with it. When

54:48

your immune system is no longer

54:50

able to actively

54:53

and accurately provide

54:55

that surveillance, then

54:57

your tumors escape, immune

54:59

surveillance, and they are able to grow

55:01

beyond the point where your

55:03

immune system is able to deal with them.

55:06

You can deal with them when it's one, you

55:09

can deal with them when it's a handful. But

55:11

if it's a whole glob of

55:13

them, if it is something measurable,

55:16

it may be too large for your body's

55:19

built-in systems to deal with anymore. And

55:21

at that point, it might happen to be operated.

55:24

It might have to be removed

55:27

surgically because it might just be too big for

55:29

your body to deal with. But that key

55:31

there about immune surveillance

55:35

and, and this antitumor effect

55:37

of in this case ratio,

55:40

the anti-tumor effect does not mean that

55:42

if you have like a tumor

55:44

and it's measurable in centimeters,

55:47

that don't worry ratio

55:49

is going to mean that you don't have to have surgery

55:51

or, or whatever the conventional

55:54

therapy that is being recommended. Hmm

55:56

. And I think that's also

55:58

a big part of the reason why, when

56:00

we were talking about that , she talked you into my talkie

56:02

. There's a lot of data

56:05

around preventing cancer recurrence occurrence,

56:08

because we are trying to

56:10

improve that state of surveillance

56:13

so that you can deal with those cells

56:16

that , that fall over into the dark

56:18

side one at a time,

56:20

instead of them coming together as

56:23

tumor. Yeah.

56:24

And for those of us who haven't yet had cancer, this

56:27

is a great way to keep it that way. Yeah . Yeah.

56:29

Keep that good immune surveillance , uh, in,

56:31

in inactive.

56:33

Right. So if you're worried about cancer, if it runs

56:35

in your family, go on

56:37

out, get yourself some mushrooms, do it now,

56:39

before yeah.

56:42

Before those tumors escape, immune surveillance.

56:45

Yeah. And I mean, you know, it's not to say that

56:47

it can't help at all when there is a tumor present,

56:49

right. Like , and again, that could be in a, in

56:52

a com a combination activity.

56:54

There have been studies of, of reishi

56:57

directly against tumors, fully grown tumors

56:59

and everything. Um, and there , you know,

57:01

you can see where it's inducing, what's called apoptosis.

57:04

That's the kind of programmed like

57:06

scheduled cell death that's supposed to happen.

57:09

Um, also preventing the growth of blood vessels into

57:11

the tumor. So it can't feed itself anymore.

57:13

That's called angiogenesis. Right.

57:16

And then , um, even to reverse

57:20

drug resistance on the part of

57:22

the tumor. So when we attack a

57:24

tumor with , with conventional,

57:26

you know, drugs and medications, sometimes

57:29

the tumor figures it out and becomes

57:31

resistant to it. Just the way that bacteria

57:34

can get resistant to do the same old antibiotic.

57:37

So here, what they're saying is basically we

57:39

had a drug, we were attacking a tumor with it. It

57:41

stopped working, we added reishi,

57:43

and now the drug works again. So that's a , that's

57:45

a really powerful, positive, or

57:48

a drug interaction. Yeah. Um,

57:51

so, you know, tumors are fascinating and

57:54

they're a really interesting test case for immune active

57:56

activity , uh, of our herbs and our mushrooms.

57:59

But , um, one thing I also wanted to swing

58:01

over to was to look at a different expression

58:03

of inflammation and immune response

58:06

and that's allergy. So

58:08

reishi , um , in particular, amongst

58:10

medicinal mushrooms is really

58:12

profoundly effective at reducing

58:14

allergic sensitivity and allergic

58:16

responsiveness.

58:18

It's that modulating action, right?

58:20

Like part of allergies

58:22

is, oops. There's a little too much inflammation

58:25

response too . Yeah.

58:27

Okay. Paula, and maybe it's irritating, but maybe

58:29

we don't need quite as much response as we're getting.

58:33

Um, and with that modulation

58:35

, uh, to keep the inflammation

58:37

in that Goldilocks place , uh,

58:40

then allergy season is much less miserable.

58:42

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty great. Um,

58:45

in terms of how we take reishi , uh,

58:47

we do like to cook it into , um,

58:50

long decoctions in particular.

58:53

That's a really great way to , to access the medicine

58:55

in this plant. Um,

58:57

you'll see a lot of folks talk about making double

58:59

extractions with reishi, and

59:02

that's the , the reason that

59:04

you would do that is if you wanted to have something

59:06

like a tincture, right. Something that you can

59:08

just carry around a liquid remedy

59:10

that you can just take by the dropper. Um,

59:13

when you do that, you

59:15

can't simply make a straight

59:17

up a tincture of the plant and get the full

59:20

range of its effects. Um,

59:22

if you did want to do it, you need to do

59:24

a high proof alcohol, first of all, to , to

59:26

tincture your , your mushroom here. Um,

59:30

and what you would generally do is make

59:32

that tincture , uh, and, you

59:34

know, give that the time to master it and everything, and then strain

59:36

that out and take that liquid. And then you can

59:38

take the , the Mark, the pieces

59:41

of mushroom that you had been soaking in the alcohol.

59:44

Um, and instead of throwing them out, you can cook them. You

59:46

can make a decoction out of those. And

59:48

then you combine that liquid and, you know , cook

59:50

it down and make a good, strong, and concentrated. You

59:53

can combine that liquid with

59:55

the alcohol extract or the tincture

59:57

that you made previously and combine

59:59

the two of them. And now you've got

1:00:01

that double extraction to , to work with,

1:00:04

Can also do that process in reverse, which

1:00:06

I think yields a better quality

1:00:08

product. Um, it is

1:00:10

a little bit more complicated because it's going

1:00:12

to take a month to get the alcohol after

1:00:14

you have done the decoction. So

1:00:17

it's something that you might want to have multiple batches

1:00:20

going so that , um,

1:00:22

so that you can be adding the alcohol

1:00:25

from ,

1:00:26

That could even overlap if you were, if you were taking

1:00:28

this consistently and , right,

1:00:29

Right, right. Um, but I do think

1:00:32

that it, it does break

1:00:34

down better if you do the decoction first on

1:00:36

the alcohol part after, right. If

1:00:38

you, if you're able to do that. Yeah.

1:00:40

But to be honest, we don't really do this very often.

1:00:43

Uh, never, almost, almost never,

1:00:45

No, at times it wasn't, it wasn't super blown

1:00:47

away by that preparation. I have had some reishi

1:00:50

extracts or tinctures that were really powerful

1:00:52

and great. Um, so maybe

1:00:54

that, I just haven't figured out the trick at home

1:00:56

yet, but when we're at home, we're

1:00:58

, we're at home and we've got a stove and we've got heats

1:01:01

and water and all the good things to just make a strong

1:01:03

decoction. Um,

1:01:05

Yes . If you toss a smidge of decaf coffee

1:01:07

in with it, like the bitterness

1:01:09

of reishi is very similar

1:01:12

in flavor to the bitterness of coffee.

1:01:14

And so if you make, you

1:01:16

know, a really strong reishi

1:01:19

decoction, which by the way, you can,

1:01:21

you can just keep adding water to

1:01:23

, um , over the course of several days.

1:01:26

And then you just add a smidge of decaf

1:01:28

coffee to it. The results

1:01:32

really tastes very coffee,

1:01:34

like a little bit different,

1:01:36

but really similar, so similar

1:01:38

that it is very easy to adapt

1:01:41

to very easy to , to like shift your palette

1:01:43

in that direction. Uh, and that's

1:01:45

my favorite way to work with reishi

1:01:47

every morning.

1:01:48

Yeah. Yeah. You can do that. You

1:01:50

can also try chai spice flavors. Um,

1:01:53

sometimes that goes fine together with a little

1:01:55

coffee in there, you know , um, when

1:01:57

you're making that, that kind of not coffee situation

1:02:00

, uh, with the reishi and the decaf and everything,

1:02:02

you can also put in other adaptogens that you like

1:02:04

and that you want to have in your routine. Um,

1:02:07

so that's , uh , it's a very nice way

1:02:09

to herbalist up your coffee habit

1:02:12

know , make it a lot better for you. Yes

1:02:15

. All right . Cool. Well, let's move on to our

1:02:17

third highlight or our last mushroom

1:02:19

here. And we're going to talk about lion's mane,

1:02:22

Which is one of my favorites, because

1:02:24

it looks like a hedgehog.

1:02:27

And in case you haven't noticed, I do have

1:02:29

a thing for hedgehogs. I like them quite a bit.

1:02:32

They're all over. I like

1:02:34

hedgehogs. Um, and yeah,

1:02:36

this mushroom, it looks like a hedgehog. I

1:02:38

don't know why they named it lions mean , do

1:02:40

you actually , um, because

1:02:43

lions are considered strong,

1:02:45

powerful creatures and

1:02:49

hedgehogs are just like, whatever

1:02:51

they're lowly and cute, but

1:02:53

, um, don't underestimate

1:02:55

the power of cute hedgehogs.

1:02:59

Yeah , yeah,

1:02:59

Yeah. So, you know, lion's

1:03:02

mane when , uh, when you

1:03:04

look at the research on it, or you look at the hype

1:03:06

about it, you know , uh,

1:03:08

both cases, this particular mushroom

1:03:10

has had a lot of focus around its capacity

1:03:12

to regenerate and to rebuild

1:03:15

and to protect nerve tissues

1:03:18

in your body, including yes, your brain

1:03:20

and your spinal column, but also peripheral nerves

1:03:22

, uh , all around the system. So

1:03:25

, um, linesmen has been really extensively studied

1:03:27

for this. And one thing that has been

1:03:29

shown over and over again is that it

1:03:32

stimulates the activity of something in your body

1:03:34

called nerve growth factor. And,

1:03:37

you know, I was educated , uh, back

1:03:39

in the eighties and nineties and like primary school.

1:03:41

And at the time I can distinctly remember

1:03:44

in biology class being taught that you

1:03:46

can't regrow a nerve once it's stamped ,

1:03:48

Even in college for me. Uh,

1:03:51

okay. Well that was the nineties , um,

1:03:56

uh, you know, in college biology,

1:03:58

that's what we learned. And I can remember

1:04:01

already being an herbalist, like already

1:04:03

being established in my herbal career when they said,

1:04:05

Oh, wait, some herbs, or

1:04:08

some nerves can regrow.

1:04:10

And it was like this huge discovery.

1:04:13

Yeah. And it was, so it was like provisional

1:04:15

and like only this one and his particular circumstance.

1:04:17

And like, since then, there's been

1:04:20

evidence of regeneration in

1:04:22

damaged nerves all over the body, even

1:04:24

in places where it was previously thought impossible.

1:04:26

So there we go , uh

1:04:28

, science continues to evolve. We try to keep up

1:04:31

and , uh , sometimes really good news

1:04:33

happens that way.

1:04:34

Yeah. And maybe, you know, maybe you

1:04:36

can't regrow every single thing back

1:04:38

the perfect way, but that's true

1:04:40

regardless. Right. That's part of

1:04:42

being human. Not everything

1:04:44

will be perfect, but , uh,

1:04:47

Hey, I will take whatever nerve

1:04:50

regrowth stimulation I can get my hands

1:04:52

on for sure.

1:04:53

Yeah. So , um, this

1:04:55

has been demonstrated in a couple of different contexts,

1:04:58

including nerves that have

1:05:00

like , uh, become diseased

1:05:03

and they're still there. They weren't like

1:05:05

physically damaged or whatever, but they're, they're

1:05:07

breaking down. They're losing healthy function. Think

1:05:10

of a , of a , uh , disease condition

1:05:12

like multiple sclerosis, right? The

1:05:14

nerves are damaged. Their myelin sheath is degraded.

1:05:16

They're not, they're not functioning well. So it's been

1:05:18

shown to, to protect and to regenerate

1:05:21

nerves there, but also , um,

1:05:23

you know, we give our, thanks to some rats

1:05:26

who proved for us that

1:05:28

, uh , lion's mane can increase neuro-regeneration

1:05:31

after a crush injury. Uh,

1:05:34

I, yeah.

1:05:35

You know, enough crush injuries

1:05:37

happen by mistake that

1:05:40

we don't need to create

1:05:42

crush injuries in animals

1:05:44

to study this stuff, but, okay.

1:05:46

Yeah. I only, I only highlight this to

1:05:48

say that , um, it is true

1:05:51

that there can both be physical trauma. The

1:05:53

nerve got broken, it got squashed,

1:05:55

it got sliced, it got whatever, or

1:05:58

a kind of disease process bred down . In

1:06:00

both cases, lion's mane

1:06:02

has been showing capacity to regenerate.

1:06:06

Um, there was a really nice summary

1:06:09

paper from 2013 that I'll

1:06:11

include in the show notes for everyone. Um,

1:06:13

and it's not just about lion's mane, but about

1:06:15

other medicinal mushrooms as well. I

1:06:17

got really excited when I found this , uh,

1:06:20

for a couple of reasons. One was

1:06:22

because it gives a pretty good overlay and has

1:06:24

a ton of references to other papers

1:06:27

that show this, this capacity

1:06:29

of lion's mane. Um, and

1:06:32

I think proved that really conclusively, but

1:06:34

I was especially excited because they were also

1:06:36

looking for similar activity from

1:06:38

other medicinal mushrooms, including reishi

1:06:41

and including my talkie , uh,

1:06:44

which we've discussed here today and a few others that,

1:06:46

that we're not talking about right now, but

1:06:49

they noted that those two had neurite

1:06:51

outgrowth and neuronal health benefits

1:06:54

, um, uh, as well.

1:06:56

And there was a study where they were

1:06:59

looking at one particular measurable

1:07:01

, um, uh,

1:07:04

thing that you could trace that you could look at

1:07:06

, uh , to measure the degree

1:07:09

of this nerve regeneration activity.

1:07:11

And to my surprise, it was basically

1:07:14

the same with [inaudible]

1:07:16

, I'm sorry, with , with lion's mane, with reishi,

1:07:18

with my Takeda , with cordyceps

1:07:20

and a couple of others. Um,

1:07:23

so again, that speaks to me that we've

1:07:25

been really focused, like, all right , we want to do

1:07:27

some nerve regeneration, got to get the lion's mane. That's

1:07:29

the one that will do it. And in fact,

1:07:31

maybe the reishi can help out there. Maybe my talk,

1:07:34

I can do it quarter Cypress if you're into that. Yeah .

1:07:36

Yeah. Especially that's helpful because

1:07:39

it is easier to find

1:07:41

my talkie than

1:07:43

lions mean, especially if you want to eat

1:07:45

it fresh.

1:07:47

Yeah. And this, this same pepper indicated,

1:07:49

indicated that that eating the, eating

1:07:51

the mushrooms , um, they say

1:07:54

fresh here , but they really mean that you've, you've

1:07:56

cooked it at least a little bit , um, that that

1:07:58

may be the best option for how to take them

1:08:00

and that some forms of processing like grinding

1:08:02

or drying or making into a capsule or whatever

1:08:04

, um, actually reduces

1:08:06

this capacity to regenerate nerve tissue. So

1:08:08

, um, ideally we would all have

1:08:10

like a, you know, a forest to wander into

1:08:13

and a Grove of lions mane pluck

1:08:15

from, for tonight's dinner. And that would be great

1:08:17

, um, until we, until we

1:08:19

achieve that utopia, it

1:08:22

is fantastic. If you have like a farmer's market

1:08:24

with a mushroom grower , um, many

1:08:26

of them

1:08:27

More common yeah . Support your

1:08:29

local local mushroom farmers. Yeah,

1:08:32

Yeah . Yeah. So if you can get it from there , um,

1:08:34

or if, if your market is amazing

1:08:36

enough to have some fresh lion's mane mushrooms

1:08:38

, sometimes if not, don't worry,

1:08:41

the , the extracts and the preparations and capsules

1:08:43

and things, they do, they do work, you

1:08:45

know, and we have some direct, direct experience

1:08:47

with that.

1:08:48

Well, you know, I also though

1:08:50

I do notice that when I am

1:08:52

more stressed out , um,

1:08:55

our meal shifts more and more

1:08:57

towards the mushroom end of the spectrum. Yeah .

1:08:59

Oh yeah. This week has had a , we

1:09:02

had this bag of mushrooms on that bag and it's gone

1:09:05

Last night for dinner. I was

1:09:07

like, I really just want mushrooms.

1:09:10

And I made a pan

1:09:12

of like almost all mushrooms and like a

1:09:15

very small amount of everything else.

1:09:18

I'm going to lay a little bit of roots and

1:09:20

mostly just mushrooms and that, and some

1:09:22

mashed potatoes. And I was like, this is dinner. I don't know

1:09:24

.

1:09:26

It was great. It was super healthy. Yeah. Yeah.

1:09:28

But I mean, you know , uh , so

1:09:31

Katia doesn't mind me saying this, you've had a

1:09:34

diagnosis in your life for multiple sclerosis

1:09:36

When I was 29, I was diagnosed with

1:09:38

ms. Um, but I was

1:09:40

pregnant at the time and that I was nursing. So I never

1:09:42

was medicated cause that wasn't possible

1:09:45

while I was pregnant and nursing. And , um,

1:09:47

during that time I figured out how to manage it

1:09:49

without medication and have never

1:09:51

yet needed to turn to medication

1:09:54

because the methods that I have developed

1:09:56

to manage it are still sustaining me.

1:09:58

And one of them is all of

1:10:00

the mushrooms. And I will tell you, there

1:10:03

have been times when our budget

1:10:05

has been very, very tight and

1:10:08

I have never compromised

1:10:10

on mushrooms. Like I have always had

1:10:12

a separate budget

1:10:14

item for mushrooms. Um,

1:10:17

specifically my talkie that has been the one

1:10:19

that I have. Like if I can't

1:10:22

do anything else, I will buy my

1:10:24

talking mushrooms because also we were lucky

1:10:26

in our area. You can get fresh, my talking

1:10:28

mushrooms at the grocery store. Um,

1:10:31

and they're costly.

1:10:33

So when you go, you might see

1:10:35

like sometimes you can get them for $6

1:10:38

a pound and sometimes it might be 11 or 12.

1:10:41

But the thing is that a pound of mushrooms is

1:10:43

actually a lot of mushrooms, so

1:10:45

it looks really expensive. But then

1:10:48

when you see what you get for that much money,

1:10:50

you're like, Oh, okay, actually that's not so bad. Right.

1:10:52

Um, but , uh, but that is,

1:10:55

it has been a huge part of keeping

1:10:57

my body functioning.

1:10:59

Yeah. I was thinking of the

1:11:01

last time that you got glutened was

1:11:04

now several years ago. Um

1:11:06

, and it was a total accident and it was,

1:11:08

it was one of those times where something we thought

1:11:11

was safe, turned out not to be. Um

1:11:13

, and even

1:11:14

I had only had a tiny little bite of it and

1:11:16

it was enough to,

1:11:17

But that was the last time that you lost some of

1:11:19

your arm functions , some of your, some of your nerve

1:11:21

activity in the hands and arms. And

1:11:24

I remember you trying lion's mane, like, I dunno

1:11:26

, I'll give it a shot doing all this stuff you normally do.

1:11:29

This is one of the first times that you'd worked with it intensively.

1:11:32

And , um, it really did seem to turn it

1:11:34

around a little bit .

1:11:34

I really did. That had been the first

1:11:36

time that I, I had discovered

1:11:39

lion's mane before that incident,

1:11:41

but after I, I

1:11:43

was mostly symptom-free . Um,

1:11:46

and so that was kind of the first opportunity

1:11:48

to really see , um,

1:11:52

the impact that it had. And it , it was

1:11:54

very, very impressive. But

1:11:56

the flip side of that is my talkie

1:11:58

is what I relied on before I found

1:12:01

lion's mane. And that also

1:12:03

has, has been very impressive. So

1:12:05

yeah , yeah , yeah. Even though I didn't

1:12:08

yet have the data , um,

1:12:10

because that this particular paper

1:12:12

you're referencing was 2013 and my diagnosis

1:12:15

was in 2003,

1:12:17

2002 , uh , the end of 2002.

1:12:20

So , uh , there was a long period

1:12:22

of time there where I was working with my talkie

1:12:24

because, because I was feeling the effects

1:12:26

in my body, but not because I had

1:12:28

actual hard science around nerve

1:12:30

growth factor, because I think at that point

1:12:34

that, that that's really close to when

1:12:36

we even were talking about nerve growth factor

1:12:38

in sort of like citizen science.

1:12:41

Um, so that those

1:12:44

things were not yet established.

1:12:46

Yeah. Yeah.

1:12:48

Anyway, mushrooms, they , uh,

1:12:50

they matter.

1:12:51

Yeah. So again, lions , man , we do like to,

1:12:53

if you, if you get it for us, just chop it up, put it in food,

1:12:55

eat it. Um, elsewise

1:12:58

, uh, no, there are good. There are good capsules.

1:13:00

There are good supplement versions of it. We were

1:13:02

fond of the ones from host defense. They are quite

1:13:05

expensive , uh, but they are quite

1:13:07

effective. So that's, that's fair.

1:13:09

I'd say, yeah.

1:13:12

You know, if I, if I have to

1:13:14

have a portable mushroom

1:13:16

extract , uh, the one that I like

1:13:18

best is from herbal revolution

1:13:21

and I just happened to have someone on the table

1:13:23

here, but that's true. That's

1:13:25

Kathy Lang there in Maine and she,

1:13:28

she makes a really good mushroom extract.

1:13:30

There are some other folks who also make a really good one, but

1:13:33

this is, this is the one that I typically turn

1:13:35

to. Yeah. It's

1:13:37

really good.

1:13:37

Herbal revolution, Kathy . She

1:13:40

just wrote a book

1:13:41

With recipes. Yes. I'm very excited about , I don't know if

1:13:43

this

1:13:43

One is in there, but uh, let's cross

1:13:45

our fingers, but I think it's going to be called herbal revolution.

1:13:48

Um, I saw the cover and I can't remember,

1:13:50

I'll dig it up. I'll put it in the show notes, at

1:13:52

least the announcement. Anyway, while we're on the topic

1:13:55

of books. Um, here's

1:13:57

one I wanted to just kind of show to everybody.

1:13:59

If you're interested in medicinal mushrooms,

1:14:02

then you should find out about radical mycology.

1:14:05

He is the definitive tome of

1:14:09

enormity. Yes. So

1:14:11

this was by Peter McCoy

1:14:12

And a number of other contributors , uh,

1:14:15

put in there as well. This book is bigger than

1:14:17

, um, medicinal applications

1:14:19

of mushrooms. This is like , uh,

1:14:22

I think Peter's goal with this book was to

1:14:24

open up all of our eyes to the beauty

1:14:26

and wonder of the fungal kingdom that's

1:14:29

been here the whole time. Uh,

1:14:31

so it's a really fantastic book. And

1:14:33

one of the things I like about it the most is that

1:14:35

a lot of it is dedicated to making

1:14:39

powerful, but inexpensive mushroom

1:14:41

preparations at home, like how to grow

1:14:44

a Mason jar full of like potent

1:14:46

mycelium on your kitchen counter,

1:14:49

Right? Like you don't need to have

1:14:51

a clean room and the like booties

1:14:54

that you put on your shoes and all kinds of stuff,

1:14:56

he really is talking about

1:14:59

how to , um,

1:15:02

make mushroom growing accessible

1:15:04

to really, to everybody

1:15:06

at home. Yeah.

1:15:08

So I think that's pretty fantastic.

1:15:10

And , uh , uh, there is also a ton of great

1:15:12

medicinal evidence and other stuff in here, all

1:15:15

about it. So yeah. Radical.

1:15:17

Mycology check that one out. Cool.

1:15:20

Well, I think that's about it for us for today.

1:15:24

Um, anything else to add or

1:15:26

I love mushrooms and I want to

1:15:28

eat them right now.

1:15:30

Yeah. It's about lunchtime. We can do that. All

1:15:33

right , everybody. So thanks for listening today. Um,

1:15:36

we'll be back next week with some more holistic herbalism

1:15:39

podcasts for you until then

1:15:41

take care of yourselves. Take care,

1:15:43

Drink some tea, drink some tea, eat some

1:15:45

mushrooms. We'll see

1:15:47

you then bye-bye

1:15:50

.